


Taking it off

by Emmzzi



Category: Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmzzi/pseuds/Emmzzi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phish Food has a humdrum life and is stuck in a rut. One day, another pint shows her a different way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking it off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baniszew](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baniszew/gifts).



**Chapter 1.**

 

"Look at the state of that. Lid hanging off. Carton dented. She's had more than one spoon in her last night, I'll tell you that."

Phish Food glanced at Vanilla, whose lid was, in fact, slightly out of place, and kept quiet.

The school run mums were so cliquey, one wrong word and you'd be forever out of flavour. Mudslide once made a snide remark about a PTA fundraiser, and the backlash was so bad, she’d moved back to Dublin to start over. Same with Coffee, who arrived all enthusiastic and perky, but she wasn't the best mixer and eventually they ground her down.

Fossil Fuel, the one doing the judging, was fairly traditional, old school, and struggled to accept that these days, not everyone waited until they were blended and packaged before indulging in a little spooning.

Well so what if you did?, thought Phish. One Sweet Whirl once in a while was no sin. If you fancied a little Bonarroo Buzz, why not? Wouldn’t last forever, but as long as you know it was a limited edition at the start, so what?

Even if you did wait for the right mix, there were no guarantees it'd last forever. Look at Neopolitan Dynamite. That'd lasted barely months before Cherry Garcia was back to her single life, with only a few choc chunks to show for her trouble, and a red face.

Brownie had felt no remorse as he cheated on her all around the freezer. Messing about with Vanilla, bringing Cookie Dough in for a threesome.

Mind you, Vanilla went with *everything*. Part of Phish was shocked, but mainly she was envious. Oh, to be a libertarian! And Chocolate Fudge Brownie.. he was a rake and a cad, no doubt about it, but everyone adored him on some level. Given a chance, most flavours would have.

Well. Probably not Fossil. Fossil didn’t seem to approve of anything, or have any kind of fun.

"Anyway," sniffed Fossil, "Here they are!"

The young tubs bounded through the school gates, full of beans and eager to tell all about what they'd learned in sprinkles class. Phish gave her 2 young tubs a hug, and hustled them away. Snack time, a few marshmallows to make them big and strong, a glass of milk of course. Then story time, then tucked up nice and cold in the drawer for the night.

 **Chapter 2.**

Life went on. Phish dropped the tubs off, came home, cleaned the drawer she rented in a small, city centre freezer. Picked the tubs up, most days failing to avoid Fossil and her moral judgements. But, she had to keep going for the sake of the tubs. They’d have a brisk walk home, then she’d feed them so they'd grow into big strong pints.

Most days, she told stories until they went to sleep. Usually nice stories, like "The 1001 Toppings", or "Dairyrella," where the heroine ends up living in the biggest sundae glass you ever saw, surrounded by all her favourite flavours. (That was the European version. In the American version it was a giant ice cream cake, on a rotating stand in a glass fronted freezer cabinet in a ritzy store.)

On Halloween though, they'd tell other stories. "The month long power cut," or "The man who never washed his bowl." One time, they'd all gone over to Chocolate Fudge Brownie's, and when the tubs were asleep, he'd told the true story of the flavour graveyard.

Phish’s family had told her that her siblings Phish Sticks had gone overseas… how naïve she’d been. Everyone ended up in the graveyard eventually. Phish had cried herself to sleep that night. And ever since, Phish had worked hard on keeping her packaging neat and her caramel gooey, putting off the awful day.

And yes, as well as taking care of herself, she was a little drawer-proud. What of it? It was small, and not as cold as it could be, and wasn't in one of those fancy big fridge-freezers with the ice dispenser and everything - but she kept it clean and tidy. It could be worse.

Her cousin, Half Baked, lived in the tiny frozen compartment of a refrigerator, the salad keeping him awake all day and night, shouting to come down and see what a good tossed dressing felt like. And walking past chops and bacon to get home… ewww. Phish tried not to be prejudiced, but something about that made her marshmallows slide. Meat was so raw, and slimy.

Live and let live, though. In fairness, bacon had been in the fridge first; Baked was the interloper.

 **Chapter 3.**

One day, as she approached the school gates, Phish could hear a low hum. As she got nearer, she realised it was the sound of two dozen school mums’ frenzied gossiping.

“Look at…” “I never..” “In daylight!”

And one voice standing out from the crowd, the precise, clipped tones of Strawberry Cheesecake. “I think it’s very chique. One must move with the times. I may even have a few calories taken off myself.”

Then silence, while the other tubs decided if they agreed or not.

Strawberry Cheesecake was something of an alpha tub, but sometimes she was just wrong. And choosing your allegiances was so important! Suddenly Phish was very busy keeping quiet and not having an opinion, in case it was a dangerous opinion.

She strained and then pushed forward a little to see what all the fuss was about.

It was Cherry. Or.. it looked like Cherry. It also didn’t look like Cherry. She was wearing a bright green tub, positively flowing with health, if anything looking a little smug.

“No, just as many cherries!” she was enthusing, “and probably a few more choc chunks! I swear I have never felt better! And only 150 calories, I have NEVER been more popular!”

Fossil sidled up to Phish and hissed. “Who does she think she’s kidding? That’s not what people want, some skinny pot of bacteria! No, they want rich, dairy, creamy goodness.”

“What’s she done?”

“She’s had all the fat sucked out of her,” sneered Fossil. “And replaced with yogurt! Who’d want that when you could have a real dessert?”

“Yes, of course you’re right,” said Phish.

But Cherry looked so happy.

 

 **Chapter 4.**

Phish did some reading. “The Grocer.”

If you wanted to be a “FroYo”, as they seemed to be calling it, you had to put up with some kind of stabilisers and there was a danger of melting. But contrary to Fossil’s opinion, it didn’t seem to affect your popularity. The “bacteria” Fossil was so scathing of, were actually really helpful, and Cherry’s sales had pretty much doubled.

Doubled. Imagine that. Maybe that ice dispenser wasn’t just a dream?

“More love, less handle,” the article said. Phish wasn’t sure what handles had to do with it, but the “more love” sounded good.

She sighed. Cherry had probably spent weeks in a specialist kitchen, trying loads of new formulations and recipes. Not very self-actualising either, was it. No. Phish had been distracted for a moment by the thought of being popular, but it was more important to be yourself, to live a good life. Really, who cared if she had double the calorie count? People should love her for herself, just as she was. If that wasn’t good enough well, well.. darn them to heck!

Fossil was right. It was all flash and show. Although Phish refused to agree that Cherry was “no better than she should be” simply because she’d had a few flings and a bit of a makeover. Lots of people wouldn’t kick Brownie out of the bowl. He was so darn fudgey.

But yes, yogurt.. it did feel wrong. Like cheating.

That rankled though. Fossil being right.

 

 **Chapter 5.**

One day, where the tubs were at school, there was a knock at the drawer front. Through the frosted glass, Phish could see a blur of green. Cherry? Visiting her?

She slid the drawer open, and to her surprise, it was Chocolate Fudge Brownie.

Well. It was, and it wasn’t. He was glowing. Looking lean, healthy and.. well, saucy. Phish detected the aroma of hot toffee.

“Um..I.. do you want to..”

“Love to,” grinned Brownie, pushing his way past her into the drawer. “Nice place you have here. Small.. but nice. Tubs at school?”

Phish felt her marshmallow go a little gooier than usual.

“Um.. can I help you?”

Brownie smiled and rippled his chunks. “It’s more if I can help you. We’re both pretty chocolately. We’ve both been in the freezer a while. And Cherry thought you might wanna…” He leaned in close. “Try a new recipe.”

Phish’s caramel ran warm.

“There..there’s lots of other chocolate varieties. F..fossil’s got chunks.. and peace signs..”

“Oh, I know, baby. And cookie pieces. And how do you think she got that big swirl of fudge in her?”

“She.. she said it was the chef...”

And Phish suddenly felt very stupid. And not at all libertarian. Her little chocolate fish pulsed with embarrassment.

“Let’s not worry about Fossil, shall we? Cherry wants to see you. She thought maybe we could show you a good time up in our cabinet. Maybe you were our kind of…” and he paused, looking her up and down, “frozen dessert.”

Phish was nervous. She couldn’t deny she was attracted to new, slim line Brownie. Or that, in fact, she’d been crazy about old style bad Brownie. But all this variety… was it wrong? She was so confused.

“What about Vanilla? I thought you and her were.. doesn’t she want to..um..”

Brownie scowled. “Oh sure, yes, she wants to go Froyo. You’ll find her in the Haagen Daas cabinet most nights. In with the ‘wildberry.’ Some friend.” He regained his composure. “But that’s the past. C’mon. Come and see Cherry. She really misses you. She’s always talking about that one time in sprinkle camp…”

Phish blushed down to her seams. Everyone did dumb things when they were young, it wasn’t fair to bring them up later! It was just one night when they’d had too much hot fudge sauce, and it was meant to be private!

“I..I thought you and Cherry broke up? Didn’t you cheat on her?”

“That was the old me, baby. I’ve changed. And so has Cherry. We’re… more open. We’ve learned to let go of the guilt.” And he leaned in real close, so their lids were almost touching. “Do you want ‘more love’, Phish? Because we think you’ve got what it takes.”

Phish wanted to say yes. She wanted to so badly.

“I can arrange for Alaska to pick up your tubs. She said she’s fine with it for a couple of nights.”

Phish still wasn’t sure. Alaska had tub-sat before, certainly. And Brownie was so dark and mysterious, so flavourful. So.. if she were honest, so bad. It was confusing, him being, in some way.. good. Or less bad?

“You know what the best bit is, baby?" he continued in his smooth honey tones. "They want you because you’re good and pure… and then they smother you with hot fudge sauce, and all the toppings you can handle anyway. I know you wanna be bad, in the best way. Come with me.”

He lifted her lid. Phish couldn’t move. He tugged at the thin white plastic covering her modesty.

“Wait!” cried Phish. She knew it was wrong. She knew it was a slipperly slope, and one day, she might end up going as far as sorbet, if she wasn’t careful.

Brownie waited, the air heavy with anticipation.

 

“I.. I just need to fetch my spoon…”

 **  
**

**Epilogue**

 

The Grocer 2010 “Newbies” awards 2010

Frozen Sweet

Gold: Ben & Jerry's Phish Food Frozen Yoghurt

Silver: Lion Ice Cream Bars

Ref: http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/articles.aspx?page=articles&ID=207454 accessed 4/12/11

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I am a UK based writer and doing my best with our limited flavour range, odd US flavour from scoop shops have snuck in. You may also be totally aware of the product notes below, if so ignore, I may be being overly helpy! I just didn't want anything lost over the ocean.
> 
> 2\. Neopolitan Dynamite was a limited edition tub around the time of the film Napoleon Dynamite and was swirled Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Fudge Brownie.
> 
> 3\. Phish Sticks were a fish shaped Phish Food on a stick, really only sold in cinemas.
> 
> 4\. The 3 frozen yogurt flavours available in the UK are Cherry Garcia, Phish Food and Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Ice cream comes in blue lidded tubs generally, while yogurts are in pale green tubs.
> 
> 5\. “The Grocer” is a magazine and web site about the food sales business.
> 
> 6\. Where possible I have used flavours available in shops. Defunct flavours courtesy of the flavour graveyard and Wikipedia (they do not completely agree!)
> 
> 7\. Haagen Dazs have a vanilla frozen yogurt in the UK, Ben and Jerry’s do not.


End file.
